Caption

For the first time, researchers have designed a special material interface that has been shown to add to and to improve the functioning of non-silicon-based electronic devices, such as those used in certain kinds of random access memory (RAM). According to Qi Li, a professor of physics at Penn State University and the leader of the research team, the new method could be used to design improved, more-efficient, multilevel and multifunctional devices, as well as enhanced nanoelectronic components -- such as non-volatile information storage and processing; and spintronic components -- an emerging technology that uses the natural spin of the electron to power devices. This schematic drawing illustrates the multiferroic tunnel junction of two polarization configurations. The red layer is the ferroelectric barrier and the green layer is the interface that undergoes metal-to-insulator as well as magnetic-phase transition when the barrier polarization is reversed.

Credit

Li lab, Penn State University

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